


Terrible, Horrible, etc.

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad first day at NYADA.</p>
<p>futurefic, absolutely no spoilers beyond season four</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terrible, Horrible, etc.

**Author's Note:**

> A part of me wants to write a “Reflection”-type piece about Blaine going to NYADA - no spoilers there, just me speculating about far potential future for the show - and what it would be like for him, how hard it would be for him to settle into a school full of driven Kurts and Rachels where it would be far more difficult to please his teachers and where his less Broadway, less refined, more pop talent might still make him stand out but not in a good way like it has for him in the past at Dalton and McKinley... but since we know so little I’m holding back from that temptation. I’d have to make up too much of the world, and while I’m certainly not afraid of doing that I have other stories I’d rather tell with the limited time I have.
> 
> Still, I’ve been wanting to write some sweet Klaine and have had this image of Blaine’s homecoming from his first day at NYADA in my head for a while, so I wrote that, instead.

When Blaine finally, _finally_ gets home, he doesn’t relax when he lets himself into the apartment. He doesn’t go wash the grime of the city from his hands and face. He doesn’t go get a glass of water to soothe the scratch of his dry throat. He doesn’t check on the blister that feels like it’s forming on his heel and is making him reconsider his preference for not wearing socks. He doesn’t go take a shower or see if they have the makings for dinner in the refrigerator.

He just slides the front door shut with a bang and trudges directly into the bedroom, tipping face-first onto the bed and collapsing diagonally across the neatly made covers.

After a minute of lying there in silence, Blaine toes off his hot, pinching shoes and lets them fall to the floor beneath his feet. The strap of his bag pulls on his arm like a dragging anchor, but he doesn’t shrug himself loose from its clutches. The way the back of his shirt clings to him from the sweat that has covered him from almost the minute he’d stepped out that morning into the thick humidity of the early September day makes his skin feel itchy and clammy, but he doesn’t go to find a new one.

He doesn't do anything. He just lies there, closes his eyes, and breathes in the semi-familiar scents of Kurt’s detergent and shampoo and a faint hint of his own, breathes in and out and tries to keep his throat from closing up around the misery flooding him.

It’s hardly a triumphant return from his first day at NYADA.

The day at school was bad enough, really horrible on a scale he hadn’t even imagined, but what’s even worse is that he should have been home over an hour before, except that he got on the wrong train on the subway and then walked for two blocks in the opposite direction from the apartment once he finally made it to the right stop.

He couldn’t even find his way home on the first try. Dogs can find their way home. _Pigeons_ can. But apparently not him, not without having to resort to pulling out his phone and looking at a map. And even then it had taken him a couple of minutes to make sure he was oriented properly.

Blaine lets out a long, frustrated sigh; he probably should have taken up Kurt on his offer and waited for his late class to be finished so they could come back together, only he’d wanted so _badly_ to prove to himself that although New York seems huge and far too busy compared to Lima he can handle it being his new home. He wanted to prove he could manage in this city Kurt has taken to like a duck to water. He was sure he could do it.

Blaine’s laugh is dry and a little bitter and how badly he managed, and he curls one of his still sweaty arms up under his head, lets the mattress hold him up, and breathes. It’s just one day, one single, awful day, he reminds himself. It’ll get better. He’ll figure out the city and NYADA. It’s just one day. He’s sure everyone feels overwhelmed their first week in New York. Everyone has trouble with the subways and the crowded sidewalks and the endless stream of talented people outperforming them in their classes. Even Kurt.

Well, maybe not Kurt, he thinks. Kurt had been too excited to be here to have trouble.

But Blaine will be fine. He just needs a minute to pull himself together.

He stretches his neck and rolls his shoulders, every muscle tight and sore. He feels wrung out like a limp rag, physically and mentally completely done.

Maybe he’ll give himself two minutes.

He’s still lying there quite a lot more than two minutes later when he hears the door to the apartment slide open, and Blaine flinches at the sound. He tries to find the strength to push up to his feet or at least to a sitting position. He doesn’t want Kurt to find him like this. He doesn’t want to look weak or like he thinks he’s made the wrong decision, when there was _no_ decision in the world as right as the one that brought him back to Kurt’s side, in Kurt’s bed, in Kurt’s _life_ here in New York.

But even if he had the energy to pretend that he’s fine, he also doesn’t want to hide anything he’s feeling from Kurt, not anymore. He learned that lesson all too well.

So he stays where he is and listens to Kurt’s brisk steps echo through the loft as he approaches their bedroom. Kurt’s humming under his breath, something bright and cheerful, and Blaine squeezes his eyes more tightly shut, because Kurt’s had a long first day of the semester, too, in the same school with the same incredible students and the same oppressive heat making every step feel like walking through an exhaust-filled rain forest, and _he’s_ happy. Sure, it’s not his first day at NYADA overall, but it’s close enough.

Kurt’s song cuts off in a little sound of surprise when he gets to the door of their room, and Blaine waits as he hears Kurt place his bag on the floor and feels the bed rock as Kurt sinks down onto it, sitting beside Blaine’s hip.

“Hello,” Kurt says, carefully slipping Blaine’s bag free from his arm and setting it on the floor.

Blaine cracks open an eye and takes him in from the top of his perfect hair, somehow still standing high in the heat and humidity of the day, to his fond smile and bright eyes to his crisp shirt and jeans, pretty much all of it in direct contrast to how Blaine’s feeling. “Hi,” he replies with a sigh, though a part of him relaxes just to see Kurt. Even if Blaine’s failing already, at least he’s not doing any of this alone.

“How was your first day at NYADA?” Kurt asks, tilting his head and stroking up Blaine’s spine with a gentle hand.

Blaine groans and turns his head to bury his face in the crook of his arm. “I’m sure tomorrow will be better,” he tells his elbow.

Kurt slides his palm over Blaine’s shoulder and up to the back of his neck, stirring the fine hair there. When it comes to rest, the warmth of his hand sinks into Blaine’s skin, and even though he’s been overheated all day it’s actually nice. It’s comforting. “My first day there was a hard one, too,” Kurt says. “I got lost three times on campus, nearly dropped my phone in the bathroom sink, and didn’t get to eat lunch. I don’t think I managed to have a real lunch the entire first week, actually. I was too overwhelmed trying to figure everything out and remember where I was going.”

While it’s encouraging to hear that Kurt was also flustered by the situation, it’s not that simple. “I feel like I was put through a pasta machine,” Blaine says. “Flattened out and then stretched and pulled in all new ways.”

Kurt makes a disappointed little sound. “Hmm, I thought stretching and pulling you in new ways was my job,” he says, bending down to press a kiss to the back of Blaine’s head. His tone is just the sympathetic side of flirty, and the corners of Blaine’s mouth lift to hear it. He isn’t anywhere near used to them living together yet and all of the wonderful extra opportunities for intimacy that come with it, but he’s loving it.

Blaine would like to reciprocate in kind, because Rachel’s not due home for another hour, and losing himself in some physical solace would sound good even if Kurt didn’t look so amazing in those jeans, but his limbs feel as heavy as his heart. So instead of rolling over and smiling up at Kurt, he only manages a soft, resigned, “I like it a lot better when _you_ do it.”

With another quiet sound, Kurt settles beside him, pressing himself alongside Blaine. The hair on the backs of Blaine’s arms rises at the easy way Kurt nestles in beside him, his body against his and his hand moving over Blaine’s back, because it’s still almost overwhelming in the best way to be able to be close to him after they were kept apart for so long by too many miles and even more heartbreak and history. It’s going to be a while until he’s used to it.

He’s totally okay with that. He loves the way being near Kurt makes his heart pound; it’s like falling in love all over again and yet like coming home after too much time away.

“What happened?” Kurt asks him gently.

Blaine sighs and resettles so that his face is turned toward Kurt’s. He can only see out of one eye, the other pressed against his arm, but that’s enough. “She doesn’t like me,” he makes himself say, as horrible as it is. “Miss July.”

Kurt strokes his fingers along Blaine’s temple, the simple gesture somehow settling some of the twisting misery in Blaine’s stomach, and says with a bit of a smile, “I’m sorry. But did you at least get to see her abs?”

“Kurt,” Blaine says, even more softly, because she _hates_ him. It’s not something he can joke about. She hates him, and the harder he tried to get things right in front of her the meaner she got, and it’s the first _day_. He doesn’t know how it could have gone so wrong. He doesn’t know what _he_ did wrong, because he was nothing but polite and trying hard.

Kurt rubs his thumb over Blaine’s brow to smooth out the tension. “She just acts that way,” Kurt assures him. “Don’t you remember what she put Rachel through?”

Feeling pained, Blaine glances away and says, “I remember.”

“Cassandra July called her Schwimmer and made her life a living hell for almost the entire year.” Kurt props his head on his hand and fits his other arm snugly around Blaine’s waist. “It won’t be that bad for you.”

“You don’t know that.”

Kurt squeezes him a little. “Blaine, you’re charming, you’re talented, and you work extremely hard. I’m sure you’ll have her wrapped around your little finger within the week. In less than a month of exposure to your winning smiles and exuberant soft shoe she’ll be eating out of the palm of your hand,” he says, then pauses for a second of thought. “If she even eats. To look like that, she might live off of vodka-laced protein shakes and triple espressos. Or just the distilled misery of those around her.”

Blaine looks up at him and has to lay it all out, has to put voice to his shame, because Kurt almost always thinks far better of him than he deserves. In this case it’s blatantly clear that Kurt’s optimism is misplaced. “She called me _Berry_ , Kurt.”

Kurt’s mouth snaps shut in dismay, and Blaine knows how to read his wide eyes and the sudden paleness of his face. It takes a second for Kurt to regroup and try to put on an expression that vaguely resembles a smile, but it feels like an endless eternity, because Blaine knows just how bad it is to be cast in Rachel’s image in Miss July’s mind. It’s pretty much a death sentence for the semester, if not the year. It’s a promise of torment, of derision, and of pain.

Kurt expression turns brave and positive, and he resumes his stroking of Blaine’s back. “You _were_ voted the new Rachel at McKinley,” he says with forced brightness.

Blaine tucks his face back into his elbow. “She pulled me out to do every step with her in front of the class. And when I got them wrong, she made me do them again and again until they were right. Then she kept me late to explain to me in excruciating detail exactly how I was messing them up.”

Leaning in over Blaine’s back and pressing his cheek to Blaine’s shoulder, Kurt says, “It really is a good sign, Blaine. She only does that to people who she thinks have promise. It isn’t a personal judgment against you. Or if it is it’s because she sees so much potential in you. Like Rachel.”

Blaine knows Kurt is probably right. He didn’t expect NYADA to be easy, and he knew he might be in for a real trial signing up for a course with Miss July. He wants to learn from the best, and he’s willing to do what it takes to have the opportunity.

It still hurts to have been berated in front of his classmates on the first day, though. They hadn’t had a chance to get to know him, either, and now he’ll always be ‘Berry’ to them, too. He’s not Cooper’s little brother or the gay kid this time; he’s the guy Cassandra July chewed out in front of them, the guy who couldn’t follow her instructions the way she wanted, the guy who couldn’t do anything well enough.

Blaine shakes his head and doesn’t know how to answer without sounding like he’s whining, which is the last thing he wants to do. He wants to be able to handle this all on his own. He wants to be strong enough, good enough.

“You’re made for this,” Kurt tells him. He tucks his head in next to Blaine’s and nuzzles his nose against Blaine’s cheek, and Blaine sighs out again and leans into him. “I wouldn’t lie to you. You are.”

The simple comfort and reassurance is enough to shake Blaine, make him unable to keep everything inside, and he doesn’t know if he _should_ be grateful for it when he’s supposed to be able to deal with this on his own if he’s going to have any chance at succeeding... but he _is_ grateful, anyway, because it’s Kurt reaching out to him, believing in him, and Blaine needs it so badly. He needs to be able to share this experience with Kurt, even if it’s another indication that he might not actually be good enough to survive it.

“You know I’m not afraid to work hard,” Blaine says. He takes a long, slow breath to steady his voice, the motion of his rib cage lifting Kurt’s arm with it; Kurt stays there and doesn’t move away. “But that was just one class. One day. I’m exhausted already. Every muscle hurts. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do this every day.”

Kurt presses a kiss beside Blaine’s ear. “You will. I do it.”

“Yes, but you’re you.” Blaine always has admired how Kurt is talented, sure, unbelievably strong, undaunted by rejection, and never even thinks of giving up, not really.

“And you’re _you_ , Blaine.”

“I know,” is Blaine’s sigh of a reply, muffled against his elbow. There’s no comparison between them.

Kurt squeezes him again and says, “It’s just your first day. It’s going to get better. You’ll get used to the dancing, and you’ll find your place. You always do.”

Blaine nods and tries to believe him. He fit in with the Warblers even when he came to Dalton battered and bruised in spirit as well as body. He fit in with New Directions even when most of the guys didn’t want him there. He’ll fit in here, too.

He’ll find the right rhythm, the right friends, the right way of acting so that people like him. It just might take a little longer in a place where he can’t stand out for his talent like he always has but has to be known for the mockery of his teacher and the fact that he’s always going to have to be the one paired with the shortest girl in the class. Oh, and maybe that he’s the guy dating Kurt Hummel, but that’s a label he doesn’t mind so much, even if he knows it’ll be hard to be seen as Kurt’s equal when the way Kurt gained admission to the school, the way he beat Rachel head to head, and the way he carries himself has given him an impressive reputation of his own.

“You’d still have had to find your place if you’d listened to your dad and gone to study finance at NYU instead,” Kurt reminds him with a hint of teasing in his voice.

“Yeah, but at least I’m used to wearing a blazer and tie,” Blaine replies, smiling a little.

Kurt’s laugh is a soft puff of air against Blaine’s ear. “And you look very handsome in them,” he agrees. “But you’re used to drama queens and people with more ambition than heart, too. You even live with one.” He nudges Blaine with his forehead. “And before you say something I can promise you’ll regret, I am talking about Rachel, not _me_.”

Blaine turns his head to meet Kurt’s playfully stern eyes and brings up a hand to touch his cheek. There’s a tiny bit of scruff on Kurt’s soft skin, and it makes Blaine smile just to feel it, to have the luxury of touching Kurt when he’s not quite perfect but still absolutely flawless. “I’d never say that about you. You’ve got more heart than anyone, Kurt,” he says, his own heart achingly grateful that it’s his to enjoy again.

Kurt just tilts his head and smiles at him before snuggling back down again. His hand on Blaine’s back drifts lower, just at his waist, and Kurt’s fingertips tuck under the waistband of Blaine’s workout pants. “You’re going to be fine,” he promises. “You wouldn’t have gotten in if they didn’t think you could do the work.”

“My scene study professor told me to pretend I was an ice cube today and melt,” Blaine says, feeling helpless in the face of the memory of exactly the kind of work he’s expected to master. “An ice cube.”

Kurt lets out another little laugh. “I had to improvise a whole scene as a mosquito last semester.”

Leaning his head against Kurt’s, Blaine asks, “Were you allowed to speak?” He watches Kurt’s eyes, just a little too close for them to be in focus.

Kurt makes an affirmative noise. “Well, buzz,” he corrects himself. He sketches a little fluttering wing in the air with his fingers before tucking them back against Blaine’s waist. They feel good there, even not moving. They’re an anchor, a tether, something that holds Blaine where he needs to be as he lets go of some of his worries.

“All I was allowed to do was melt.”

“The weather’s good for it,” Kurt comments thoughtfully. “I bet that helped get you in the right head-space. If that’s the correct word to use about an ice cube. I mean, they don’t have heads. Unless it’s an ice sculpture, I guess.”

“Kurt,” Blaine laughs, curling his fingers in the back of Kurt’s shirt.

“What?” Kurt says, raising his eyebrows, all innocence. It might not even be feigned; not only does he take NYADA seriously, but he’s always been strategic about how to give his best performances. Apparently even as an ice cube.

Blaine leans over the few inches it takes to give Kurt a kiss. He means it to be a soft, short one, but as soon as their mouths meet he wants to linger, because Kurt tastes like diet soda and vanilla lip balm, so much like himself that Blaine’s chest clenches up in gratitude yet again and his skin flushes warm again simply from the texture of Kurt’s lips against his own. So he kisses him just a little bit longer until he reaches the point that he either has to move so that his neck is in a more comfortable position or he has to stop altogether.

For once, he chooses to stop, mostly because moving will dislodge Kurt’s arm over his back and Kurt’s knee bent over the back of his, and he’s not ready to lose that contact yet. He’s not ready not to be wrapped up in this beautiful man who believes in him more than Blaine believes in himself. Just a few minutes more, and then maybe he can coax Kurt into the shower before Rachel gets back, because he’d like to get off the tacky sweat and city grime from his body but sure wouldn’t mind getting a little more dirty as he does it.

“I love you,” is Blaine’s reply, a little softer than he’s going for but certainly real enough. He loves Kurt _so much_ , for his heart and his kindness and his, well, everything, really, including how being loved by him makes everything else feel that much more manageable, just because Blaine’s not facing it along but with the strongest person he’s ever met right there at his side.

“I love you, too,” Kurt says easily. He slides his fingers a bit more under Blaine’s waistband, stroking Blaine’s skin, and Blaine grins to himself that he’s pretty sure Kurt’s not going to need much coaxing for that shared shower.

“What?” Kurt asks again, his eyes sharp on Blaine’s face.

“I’m just happy,” Blaine tells him, a little surprised to find that it’s true.

Kurt blinks at him. “I thought your day was horrible.”

Blaine closes his eyes for a moment and sighs out, held securely by Kurt’s body and this bed that’s now theirs. He’s not sure when it happened, but as tired and disheartened as he is he actually feels happy. It’s hard to hate a day of insults and getting lost and seeing people peeing in alleys when this is what he gets to come home to. He has this kind of support, honest and heartfelt. He has this kind of love, unblinded and real. He has Kurt.

“Not anymore,” he says. It might have been utterly awful, it might make him feel shaky and weak when he thinks about it, but it’s still one of the best days of his life to have all that he does. “Thank you.”

Stroking his fingertips up Blaine’s spine beneath his shirt, Kurt says, “You don’t have to thank me; I know you’ll be here for _me_ when I explode over my scene studies class. And it’s going to happen. The professor started off the class today by telling us that because good acting should transcend language we’ll have to memorize and perform our first monologue in _Italian_.”

“Of course I’ll be here for you,” Blaine promises him, as utterly certain of that as he is of the stars in the sky. “I want you to lean on me, too.”

Kurt smiles at him, soft and pleased. His eyes are so warm Blaine could get lost in them. “I know you do. Thank _you_. I’ll be happy to pay you back for your time listening to me vent with blow jobs and extra dance lessons if you need them.”

Blaine can feel his heart skip at the thought and Kurt’s rising blush, and he says as seriously as he can manage, “Oh, I’m pretty sure I’m going to need both.”

Laughing, Kurt nudges his forehead off of Blaine’s shoulder before pulling him in for a kiss.

Blaine’s muscles might still be sore, but his heart is light enough now that he doesn’t listen to their protests as he very happily meets Kurt halfway.

After all, he just vented to Kurt, and he has payment of his own to render while the apartment is theirs alone.

**Author's Note:**

> I am spoiler-free! Please do not spoil me for anything coming ahead in the show!


End file.
